An entrepreneurial mindset is described by a conglomerate of meta-physical dispositions, also known as entrepreneurial spirit, meant to cause the innovative and energetic practice to identify or create an opportunity and take action aimed at realizing it. The philosophical themes – existentialism, axiology, pragmatism, ethics – are thereby understood to be strange attractors influencing the construction of the entity’s persona as well as the concrete practices of the entity (Figure 1).

Composite Mindset Philosophy

Important for entrepreneurship is the “creative mindset” (Faltin, 2007) that helps entrepreneurs to create new ideas and bring these to the market in a way appropriate to create value for an external audience. Psychological research highlights that true creativity comes not from the kind of area in which one is active but whether one can conceive of something that is both “new and appropriate” (Amabile, 1996). In this way, a entrepreneurial mindset is a philosophy by which individuals engage in creative acts regardless of the type of work they are engaged in. Thus, the entrepreneurial mindset might exist in cooking just as well as web-2 innovating, it is the philosophy and the action it generate that counts – not the context.

This can be contrasted to a “managerial mindset” which deals with creating order and efficiency through controlling, evaluating, and administrating practices (Sarasvathy, Simon and Lave, 1998). An entrepreneurial mindset is distinct from ‘entrepreneurial cognitions’ in that the former signify a philosophy of personal identity and values whereas the latter signify a group of heuristics or decision-making tools that entrepreneurs use to evaluate and exploit business opportunities. An entrepreneurial mindset is also distinct from Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) which is a collective identity in young entrepreneurial firms that fosters innovativeness, pro-activeness and risk-taking among participants in the firm (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996).

The philosophic codification of the mindset of an entrepreneur follows what Durkheim felt to be the achievement of modernity: “The possibility to dynamically differentiate and elaborate values” (Welsch, 1998). Thereby, as is customary in life-philosophy, the creative and initiative aspects meant to create meaning are given central stage in a holistic (or totalitarian) approach. Peter Sloterdijk elaborates on the role of philosophy : “Philosophy is stylizing the human being with the practice of terminological gene-technology (‘begrifflicher gentechnologie’), thereby developing new taxonomies of human existence” (Sloterdijk, 1999). He further explains that philosophy creates meta-physical concepts of human beings and their condition, which serve as archetypical development paradigms when perceived and internalized. One example given by Sloterdijk, is Freud’s creation, or the meta-physical engineering of the Oedipus complex. The proposed philosophical model of an entrepreneurial mindset is meant to contribute such a typology.

Information products are becoming extremely popular and one of the reasons for this is we live in a time when people want their information and they want it now.

Think about it, someone logs onto the internet late at night feeling tired and miserable because they can’t sleep – they start searching for sleep help and a website featuring a great information product which will show that that person how they can get more sleep comes up. Sure that person could probably find a lot of that information for free if they searched the net long enough, but they don’t have days to search, they want to get to sleep now. With an information product, they can instantly download and be reading that product all in less than 5 minutes.

People are extremely busy and want their info fast and also on the go. Many information products are a combination of audio as well as text. This is due to the increasing number of people wanting to take their information with them. Audio information products are great for busy people too.

Another important factor to note is that in general people would much rather spend a few dollars to educate themselves and find out “HOW TO” do something, rather than actually doing the thing they are wanting to find more information about. Psychologically, they are getting a “pay-off” by “taking the “initiative” for “finding out how” and will feel better about themselves and their goals for doing so. In and of itself this psychological pay-off is a huge contributing factor as to why information products and “how to” courses are such hot-ticket items.

Information products can be written on a wide variety of subjects, from recipes to work at home, to parenting – an information product shouldn’t be much different to a standard product. It should provide useful, valuable information to the purchaser and be of a high standard. The only difference is information products can be digitally downloaded, which means you don’t deliver a physical product to the customer.

Here are a few more reasons why information products are great for all business owners:

Once you write the product it keeps producing for you. Once you cover the costs of putting the product together, all future sales are profits. You do the work once and the product keeps working for you over and over again.

They’re simple to put together. With a research outline you can quickly put together an information product. You don’t have to worry about finding a publisher or printing costs. All you need to do is take the information you have on a subject and put it into words or audio (or both).

You can send traffic to your website. By creating an affiliate program others will help you promote your information product, which means they will drive traffic to your website and help sell your product for a commission. What a great way to build an effective sales force.

Another benefit to creating your own information product is that it will position YOU (not someone else) as the knowledgeable expert in your field of expertise. When you position yourself in the market in this way, you begin to put into affect “The Law of Attraction.” In doing so, you will begin to draw many new leads, potential customers and referrals to you and your primary product, business or back-end opportunity. The classic “Funded Proposal,” if you will.

It’s an extra passive incoming stream. Again, you do the work once and it keeps producing for you. If you offer a service online you can put together an information product which will earn you a nice passive income.

No matter how you look at it information products are hot. They’re in demand and this is a great time to get started creating your own information products.